1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to addressing in a network formed by a plurality of data processing systems and, more particularly, to an addressing system for voice mailboxes provided by telephone systems throughout the world.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, telephone companies, particularly in North America, have begun providing a number of information services to subscribers. A common service is to store and forward voice mail messages. Examples of systems which enable public telephone companies to provide such services are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,371,752; 4,580,012; 4,581,486; 4,585,906; and 4,602,129, all assigned to VMX, Inc. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,371,752 was originally assigned to ECS Telecommunications, Inc.). Other systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,199 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/594,648 which are assigned to Boston Technology, Inc. and are incorporated herein by reference. These systems are connected to a central office of a local telephone company or to a private branch exchange or other system handling calls for a large number of telephones. When one of the telephones serviced by the central office or other system is not answered, the calling party is given an opportunity to leave a telephone message which is stored for later reproduction by the user of the called telephone. The mailbox owner is given the ability to reproduce, store or dispose of the message. One of the ways in which a message may be disposed is to forward the message to another user.
Several of these systems may be connected at various nodes in a telephone network. The nodes may be all within a single local telephone company, or in several different local telephone companies, such as those within one or more of the regional Bell companies. At the present time, a user may forward a message to another user on the same data processing system, i.e., at the same node, but no method currently exists for easily transferring messages from a user on one data processing system to a user having a voice mailbox on another data processing system at a different node of the telephone system.